STRASBOURG — As the Tour de France began opening for business Thursday with a drug scandal looming over it, a contrite David Millar, just back racing after a two-year suspension, offered a look into the life of a doper and described the scandal as a "fabulous chance" for the sport to clean itself up.

"There are always going to be people who cheat," he said, "but this is a fabulous chance for the sport to get rid of the organized rings and the doctors who help them. Cycling has the responsibility to take this thing by the scruff of the neck."

He referred to the continuing scandal in Spain, where more than 55 riders, some of them here to compete in the Tour, have been linked to a doping laboratory.

"We have a beautiful sport and I want kids in the sport to know you can ride clean," said Millar, a 29-year-old Scot who was stripped of his world championship in the time trial when he was banned in 2004. His suspension expired last June 23.

When he rode for the French team Cofidis, he was arrested in a teamwide doping scandal and confessed that he had used illegal performance-enhancing drugs to become a world champion in 2003. Vials of EPO were found in his home in Biarritz in southwestern France.

"There's always going to be doubts around me," Millar said Thursday. "I just want to make people know and hear from me that I'm clean.

"It's not going to happen overnight, it's going to take years," he continued. "But I've got a responsibility and cycling has a responsibility.

"I'm a little ashamed to face my colleagues, the other riders. It's up to me to regain their respect, but I'm proud of where I'm at now and I'm proud of where I'm going."

Millar, born on Malta and raised in Hong Kong, looks more than two years older since the last time he was talking at the Tour de France about bicycle racing and himself.

His face has lost that glow he had when he discussed with equal enthusiasm his goals in the race and his latest Australian girlfriend or discovery of an obscure heavy metal band.

He turned professional at 19, won the Tour de l'Avenir at 20 and the prologue of the Tour de France in 2000.